It is with no pleasure that we inform you of the latest , an app that makes dead celebrities read stuff to you. Eleven Labs, a company that specializes in using A.I.
for text-to-speech purposes, has entered into partnerships with the estates of a number of high-profile deceased stars: Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Laurence Olivier. Their voices are now available on the company’s “Reader App,” which “takes articles, PDF, ePub, newsletters, e-books or any other text on your phone and turns it into an emotionally rich, context aware voiceover,” . Honestly.
.. do you really need James Dean to recite a PDF for you? Is this the glorious, technologically advanced future we’ve been promised? Really? It’s bad enough that the allows tech to use someone’s face or voice, frequently , for whatever purposes any random user might dream up.
It feels all the worse when the face or voice belongs to a dead person, especially those who never could have foreseen the need to add to their will, “Don’t let them steal my voice like Ursula from .” (Most of the people we’re talking about here wouldn’t even understand a reference to Disney’s .) Unfortunately, we can’t stop any of these stars’ estates from signing on the dotted line, whether for the money or because they earnestly believe it will be good for that celebrity’s legacy.
“It’s exciting to see our mother’s voice available to the countless millions of people who love her,” Garland’s daug.
